"Razzle-dazzling," I admitted, trying to concentrate as I looked back at his face, at the perfect angle of his nose.
"Oh." He frowned.
"It's not your fault," I sighed. "You can't help it. You're just so—"
"Look, are you going to answer the question or what?"
I looked down. "Yes."
"Yes, you are going to answer my question, or yes, you really think that?" He was irritated again. I made a vow to be less vague in the future, and sealed it with a kiss on my heart...
"Yes, I really think that." I kept my eyes down on the table, my eyes tracing the pattern of the faux wood grains printed on the laminate. The silence dragged on. I stubbornly refused to be the first to break it this time, fighting hard against the temptation to peek at his expression.231
Finally he spoke, voice velvet-soft. "You're wrong."
I glanced up to see that his eyes were firey and gentle, like a fireside chat.
"You can't know that," I disagreed in a whisper. I shook my head in doubt, though my heart throbbed at his words and I wanted so badly to believe them.
"What makes you think so?" His liquid-topaz eyes were penetrating—trying futilely, I assumed, to lift the truth straight from my mind.
I stared back, struggling to think clearly in spite of his big face, to find some way to explain. As I searched for the words to explain, I could see him getting impatient; frusterated by my silence, he started to scowl. I lifted my hand from my neck, and held up one finger, and it wasn't the one you're imagining.
"Let me think," I insisted. His expression cleared, now that he was satisfied that I was thinking. I dropped my hand to the table, moving my left hand so
231. Jesus of Nazareth spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert of Israel, fighting off temptations left and right while seeking a closer union with his father, God.